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Ligaments of the Knee in Sports Injuries and Rehabilitation

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Rehabilitation of Sports Injuries

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Abstract

Increased athletic participation in high impact and high risk sports has increased the occurrence of soft tissue injuries in the knee. It has been estimated that the annual incidence of knee ligament injuries in the United States is 70,000 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), 40,000 medial collateral ligament (MCL), and 20,000 combined ACL/MCL injuries [1, 2]. Seventy percent of all ACL injuries are sports-related [3]. In fact, an ACL injury occurs during every 1500 h of football, basketball, and soccer that are played [4]. A study from 1972 to 1987 concluded that an ACL tear occurs on approximately 1 out of 20,000 skier days [5]. Overall, 72% of all ACL injuries occur in males because they participate in sports more than females [6]. However, females have a proportionally much higher rate of ACL injury than males. Almost three times as many female basketball players and over two times as many female soccer players as their male counterparts injure their ACL [7]. Overall, the serious knee injury rate in all female athletes has increased to twice the level of that in males [8]. As the management of such ligamentous injuries occurs with greater frequency, elucidation of ligament function has become more emergent.

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Authors
  1. Savio L-Y. Woo
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  2. Eric K. Wong
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  3. J. Mi Lee
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  4. Masayoshi Yagi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Clinica “Valle Giulia”, Via de Notaris 2b, 00197, Rome, Italy

    Giancarlo Puddu MD, Prof.

  2. Sports Science Institute, Department of Medicine, Service of Rehabilitation and Functional Reconditioning, Via dei Campi Sportivi 46, 00197, Rome, Italy

    Arrigo Giombini MD  & Alberto Selvanetti MD  & 

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Woo, S.LY., Wong, E.K., Lee, J.M., Yagi, M., Fu, F.H. (2001). Ligaments of the Knee in Sports Injuries and Rehabilitation. In: Puddu, G., Giombini, A., Selvanetti, A. (eds) Rehabilitation of Sports Injuries. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04369-1_1

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